Strictly Business
by MistressKitty-chibi
Summary: Lauren can't seem to get Sydney out of her head


Title: Strictly Business

Author: Mistress Kitty (chibimistress)

Summary: Lauren stream-of-consciousness drabble on Sydney

Note: Written while I watched the DVDs of season 3, and did not know where the plot was headed. Around episode 3, where the quote is taken from, was my focus.

Strictly Business

"I wanted you. Michael said you were the best." –Lauren, 3x03

She is the best. She represents everything I am up against, but at the same time, she is everything I desire. That deep connection with Michael that makes him such an ideal partner, how just two words from him can launch elaborate schemes… For her it was only yesterday when they were lovers- for him it's been two years. What does that say?

Michael and I don't mesh well at work- my simple requests resulting in fierce arguments.

I am, in essence, a cheapened version of Sydney. I don't have as much experience (not any, really), she has the deeper bond with my husband; she's the Queen of Deception…

I could study years at her feet and never manage to attain even one tenth of her artistry.

No one has ever made me feel guilty about my life before Sydney Bristow. It is not my fault that she lost two years of her life, so why do I want to amend that fact by being her friend?

Who am I kidding? I don't want to be her friend. Being positioned opposite Sydney keeps me on my toes, fired up and ready. Passionate and alive- I don't think I could give that up- that sparring partner, my worthy adversary. If anyone is unworthy, it is me.

Why is it that when I most want to slap her cheek, to wring her neck- why is it then that my body heat rises and a tingle runs through me- from my core to my fingertips. I fling back counter-arguments as my eyes glaze over and my mouth goes dry.

Why do I want her?

When I told her she was the best, I wasn't just feeding her ego. The fact is, Sydney Bristow is the best, and I've never wanted anyone or anything more. It's a feat that those facts and figures don't fly from my head, because I can't help desiring to feel the heat that I see as flames in her eyes when she looks at me. I imagine that her skin is too hot to touch, but impossible to resist.

Like a spell she has cast on me, I'm doomed to succumb to her perfection eventually.

Perhaps Sydney was dead these last two years, because as illogical as that sounds, she is so much larger than life: her fresh-scrubbed new life makes me seem all that much more dull and ordinary. I may be the moon to light Michael's sky, but any glow I have is only borrowed from a newly risen sun.

I hate the way she schools her features. Once a spy, always a spy, I know, but she seems so cold then. It must be a crime to put forth such a frigid face on such a vivid form.

Work doesn't help. We're both trying to keep things between us strictly business, but life seems to swallow this office. There cannot be enough space between us to neutralize the charge connecting us. The office is much too small. She is around every corner and down every hallway- herself or some reflection of her; her father, Director Dixon, a meeting with Sloane or a lost look on my husband's face. She has touched everything and tainted everything that I thought was so securely mine and now I do not know whether to fight her for it or fight to take her as my own. I wouldn't call it love. No, it is a far step from love. Obsession maybe, but isn't my obsession reciprocated? Doesn't she feel just as lost in "my" world as I do in "hers"? If love is the humane side of fixation, than truly, there is something more than rivalry between us. My nighttime thoughts shift to her when Michael is asleep. The same urge which makes me verbally assault Sydney Bristow is the same one that makes me touch myself in the darkness and wonder at the feel of my lips mouthing her name.

Instinct leaves me gasping as I come, almost silently besides my husband's sleeping form. Teaching, however, burns my fingers with shame and lowers my eyes. All of my life, I thought I knew some simple truths. These feelings for another woman are wrong. And marriage is a sacred contract not to be breeched for any cause less than dire.

I know that Michael is still in love with Sydney- he won't deny it- he loves us both. And Sydney is so painfully and completely in love that it makes me cringe to feel the force of it wash over me. I would be the last to deny Michael and Sydney their bond and the memories of it, but how do I dare to feel for that one woman who I hurt simply by breathing?

Maybe things would be different now if I had known, really known, what to expect in Sydney. She caught me unawares, with my guard down and I haven't been able to rid my mind of her since.


End file.
